The invention relates to a method for producing a cooked food product. The invention in particular relates to the production of a cooked food product wherein the cooked food product comprises chick pea flour.
In the prior art, it is known to use raw material in the form of cereal grains to produce a flour, wherein the flour is used to prepare a dough. The dough is conditioned to obtain an intermediate product which can be sliced to obtain individual food elements. The individual food elements are cooked to obtain the cooked food product.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,101 discloses a continuous process for producing a fried snack food, wherein a raw material composing cereal grains is ground to obtain flour. The flour is hydrated with water to produce a grain/water slurry. The formed grain/water slurry is cooked at a temperature above the gelatinisation temperature of starch to allow the formation of a gel.
In a next step of the production process, the formed gel is cooled to allow the gelatinised starch in the gel to set back. In a further step of the procedure the cooled gelatinised ground gram is mixed with dry snack food ingredients to form a dough. The dry snack food ingredient will be used to provide a specific flavour to the food product. Once the dough has been obtained, the dough is formed or cut into individual food pieces which can be fried at a determined temperature to obtain a fried food product.
In the production of cooked food products, the handling of the flour, the mixture thereof with water and the seasoning thereof with additional food additives is particularly sensitive. It is important to control the different steps of the production process to obtain at the end of the production process, a cooked food product having the different ingredients properly dispersed over the entirety of the individual food elements. Moreover, a production process must be controlled to obtain an end product with proper nutritional properties and a texture which allows storing and shipment of the end product. Moreover, the end product should have a shape and texture which allow the consumer of the cooked food product to experience pleasant handling, consumption and digestion of the cooked food product.
One of the problems encountered during the production process of a cooked food product disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,101 is the fact that if the flour is hydrated by water and thereafter is cooked, the flour mixture could easily be burned when the heat dispersion is not sufficiently progressive and equal over the flour mixture. A related problem is the fact that parts of the flour mixture under the influence of heat can easily be stuck against the wall of the device wherein the flour mixture is heated. In case mechanical stirring is used during the heating of the flour mixture, the flour mixture can easily be stuck against the used mechanical stirring elements.
In view of the observations above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a process for the production of a cooked food product, such as a fried food product, which allows a bettor control of the production process of a cooked food product and which allows the forming of a gel while avoiding the burning of part of the flour mixture and the sticking of part of the flour mixture to the container walls of a device wherein the flour mixture is heated during the production process.